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Is this a joke? Regardless whether the concept has any merit, at this stage of idea/startup we would normally be talking about seed level funding round so small

Is this a joke? Regardless whether the concept has any merit, at this stage of idea/startup we would normally be talking about seed level funding round so small sums of money to get a small team and build a product. Almost 200 million is obscene as a seed funding. If this isn't the proof this is tullip mania then I don't know what is.

api 9y ago
I lived through the late 90s dot.com mania and you saw an MBA out of Harvard and a couple techies raise this kind of money on nothing more than a hair brained idea with .com after it. Russ from Silicon Valley with his "radio. on. internet!" is pretty close to the truth. This is a bubble. Not FileCoin, but ICOs and block chain. The vast majority of these ICOs are outright scams or unworkable nonsense. I've read some of these white papers but I stopped when they threatened to give me an eye rolling injury. (Can eyes roll so far back they get stuck?) Some of them read like they were generated by a statistical language model to parody CS papers on distributed systems. FileCoin is actually one of the best I've seen-- the team behind it has actually shipped distributed/decentralized systems that actually work (IPFS). I have to stress this-- in the ICO space a team that has actually shipped something useful is rare and this places them far above the herd. They might actually do something with this money. I also hope the honest/good ICOs don't get crushed when this inevitably implodes or gets prosecuted by the SEC. There's so much obvious outright fraud in this space I can't imagine the SEC (and FBI, etc.) aren't watching or even briefing prosecutors. That being said we (ZeroTier) have looked at an ICO but... (1) Our system has no built-in scarcity that needs a token. We have no use case for a token. It would be a force fit or an invented case, which would make it scammy. (2) We have existing investors who are justifiably nervous about taking on an unknown liability of the "potential criminal violation of securities laws" sort. So am I for that matter.
- jrs95 9y ago
  Well, Russ from SV's story is essentially what happened with Mark Cuban and Broadcast.com...so it effective is the truth.
sah2ed 9y ago
Agreed. The obscene amounts being raised through ICOs doesn't make any sense for a product or service that doesn't even exist yet.

api 9y ago

I lived through the late 90s dot.com mania and you saw an MBA out of Harvard and a couple techies raise this kind of money on nothing more than a hair brained idea with .com after it. Russ from Silicon Valley with his "radio. on. internet!" is pretty close to the truth. This is a bubble. Not FileCoin, but ICOs and block chain. The vast majority of these ICOs are outright scams or unworkable nonsense. I've read some of these white papers but I stopped when they threatened to give me an eye rolling injury. (Can eyes roll so far back they get stuck?) Some of them read like they were generated by a statistical language model to parody CS papers on distributed systems. FileCoin is actually one of the best I've seen-- the team behind it has actually shipped distributed/decentralized systems that actually work (IPFS). I have to stress this-- in the ICO space a team that has actually shipped something useful is rare and this places them far above the herd. They might actually do something with this money. I also hope the honest/good ICOs don't get crushed when this inevitably implodes or gets prosecuted by the SEC. There's so much obvious outright fraud in this space I can't imagine the SEC (and FBI, etc.) aren't watching or even briefing prosecutors. That being said we (ZeroTier) have looked at an ICO but... (1) Our system has no built-in scarcity that needs a token. We have no use case for a token. It would be a force fit or an invented case, which would make it scammy. (2) We have existing investors who are justifiably nervous about taking on an unknown liability of the "potential criminal violation of securities laws" sort. So am I for that matter.

jrs95 9y ago
Well, Russ from SV's story is essentially what happened with Mark Cuban and Broadcast.com...so it effective is the truth.

sah2ed 9y ago

Agreed. The obscene amounts being raised through ICOs doesn't make any sense for a product or service that doesn't even exist yet.